It is the commitment to catalytic philanthropy by our supporters that has enabled ISB to rise above the ordinary and remain a testimony of their commitment to institution building.

Understanding challenges and seeking solutions

Fostering economic growth through enhancing our understanding of challenges and seeking solutions in areas of relevance

For almost a decade now, ISB has been working to significantly enhance the understanding of family enterprises in India, a significant contributor to India’s economic growth. The first Chaired Professor in the area of Family Business, established in 2006 with support from Dr. Thomas Schmidheiny, not only helped create a deeper understanding of some of the challenges faced by family business but also has also trained upwards of 400 family business representatives during this time. That Dr. Thomas Schmidheiny chose to further augment his involvement through an endowment of Six Million Euros to set up the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise at ISB last year, bears testimony of his sustaining faith in the School and its seminal activities.

The Centre seeks to establish itself as the best institution for family enterprise by engaging in seminal research and involving more Asian family business communities in all the areas of its activities.

Dr Thomas Schmidheiny, Founder & Chairman, Spectrum Value Management, a philanthropic foundation, said “Philanthropy is not only giving money, but having a giving strategy aiming at a sustainable impact and demanding performance and accountability of the recipients. Entrepreneurship, Integrity, Life-long learning and individual responsibility are the four pillars of our family philanthropy values.”

Seeking solutions to some of the deepest challenges facing industry and society through rigorous research.

One of our unique contributions to society remains in seeking solutions to some of the deepest challenges facing industry and society through rigorous research. Two of our Board members have redoubled their contributions to the school to help us advance this contribution. A strong believer in the need for world class management education and research, Bajaj Auto committed INR 30 Cr to ISB to enhance our learning resources. This contribution from the Bajaj Group, a strong supporter since the early days, will help us build a world class ecosystem to strengthen our research focus.

Similarly, last year the Pirojsha Godrej Foundation supported the School with a contribution of INR 10 crore reinforcing its commitment to management research and education. Such contributions to the fundamental areas of priority to the School gives us the flexibility and autonomy to seek knowledge in its truest sense and we are extremely proud that the Foundation has chosen us to partner in this endeavor to support development of management thinking for this country.

Rahul Bajaj, Chairman, Bajaj Auto, Ltd, said, "ISB has acquired an international reputation for its academic work in imparting postgraduate education. Bajaj Auto considers it to be its duty and responsibility to support such institutions."

Our partnership with EY took share this year as EY started their support for research projects in the area of emerging markets. Projects in the areas of Exploring the effects of IPR in an “open” economy, Innovation by emerging economy multinationals in newly emerging industries, Access to Mobile Telephony and Implication for Economic Growth are being supported through this partnership. EY is committed to provide support on research on emerging markets with a funding of up to USD 250,000 per year for the next 5 years. This is an exciting initiative for us as we have joined hands with EY to find and solve relevant challenges with an academic rigor. Seeking solutions to some of the deepest challenges facing industry and society through rigorous research.